Fresh Every Time
I’ve been going to Crooked Gravel since before it existed, and I can’t wait for the 2023 edition. By ‘before it existed’ I mean I was lucky enough to link up with race directors Scotty and Chandler before they created and launched this great event in Winter Park, Colorado. It’s easy to assume that cool bike events just exist, like highways or airports or restaurants. But like all of those things, someone had to dream up the concept and then do the work to build it!
One thing I love about gravel events is how no iteration is ever the same. Separate from the variety in who shows up and all the dynamics there, just the road surface itself is always in the process of shape shifting. Yes, humans can affect it, through road grading or laying down magnesium chloride or fresh gravel. But nature has a bigger impact, through wind, rain, freezing, thawing, erosion… And the landscape we ride through is a similar live work of art.
With all the rain we’ve been getting in Colorado, it’s going to be an explosion of color up in the high country! Mostly green, yes, but also the yellows and purples and blues of mountain flowers, the whites of the aspens and the myriad colors - and sounds and smells - of Crooked Creek itself, which we ride alongside.
The ever-changing surface and conditions can be a stressor for Chandler and Scotty, I know. (And they put in plenty of time and collaboration with the county to ensure our safety.) But for us riders, that ever-changing environment for Crooked Gravel is a unique treat, like a sand mandala that we ride across - a beautiful work of art that has never existed before and will never exist again. Fresh every time!
